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More like “Eww de parfum.”Scientists are literally turning crap into gold after devising a way to convert foul-smelling fatbergs into aromatic perfumes — effectively killing two birds with one giant, stinky stone.“What we’ve done is engineer bacteria to eat fatbergs and turn them into fragrance compounds used in products such as perfumes and shampoos,” Stephen Wallace, a professor from the University of Edinburgh who proposed the unusual recycling measure, told Scotland’s STV News.Fatbergs are created when people flush condoms, wet wipes and other solid waste down the toilet, where they combine with congealed sewage and cooking oil to form a behemoth blob.The gargantuan greaseballs — the largest ever, discovered in 2017, measured 820 feet long and weighed 286,000 pounds — can clog the sewer systems, leading to major backups.Thames Water, which is responsible for wastewater treatment in London, reportedly spends over $22 million per year clearing the obstructive globs, the Daily Mail reported.New York City’s septic network is plagued by them as well.Following this plumbing system liposuction, the masses are traditionally sent to landfills for incineration.However, entrepreneurial scientist Wallace has proposed a novel way to handle the malodorous masses and leave sewers smelling sweeter in one go.First, he procures his fatbergs from a company that specializes in extracting them from pipes, after which he steams them to kill harmful microbes.The masses are then infused with a special strain of genetically engineered bacteria that eats away at the fatberg to produce a pine tree fragrance that’s ubiquitous across the cosmetics industry.“We know that bacteria love fats, and so we thought maybe we can reprogram bacteria to eat the [fatberg] fats and transform them into something useful?” said Wallace of his inspiration.
He said he envisions treating sewage treatment facilities with his fatberg Febreze “to reduce the smells associated with them...